"Neuroligically Hardwired" Movements

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Last week I engaged in an awesome discussion on Twitter regarding my post "Lunges vs. Leg Press". It was essentially three solid days of tweets being sent back and forth between my account and another account discussing our particular view points. Near the end of the discussion, the owner of the other account brought up the idea that movements such as lunges and squats are (paraphrasing) movements that are hardwired into our brain and nervous system.

I have heard this argument before, that these two movements, in addition to others, are being considered "basic human movements". My understanding of statements like these is that squats, lunges, hip hinges, and the like are movements that all humans know how to perform and therefore should take precedence in training and exercise programs. I happen to fundamentally disagree with these thoughts.


This is a large topic to bite off all at once and I'm not sure I will be able to thoroughly cover all of my points in this post, but I hope my message and argument comes across clearly.

First, what we have superficially labeled as a "squat" or a "lunge" (I'll just stick with those two for this post so I don't have to keep giving different examples to fit every scenario) is nothing more than a combination of motions at the (generally speaking) hip, knee, and ankle. In other words, these "complex" movements are nothing more than a series of isolated movements pieced together by the brain.

The brain does not know "squat". The brain does not know "lunge". That is what we on the outside see superficially. Additionally, a "squat" or a "lunge" does not even look the same between individuals--or even within the same individual from day to day or even rep to rep. So even if these movements were somehow hardwired into all of us to be able to "squat" or "lunge", it clearly was not hardwired in even close to the same way because there are VAST differences between people's ability to orchestrate and execute these skills.

If the brain doesn't know "squat" and it doesn't know "lunge", what does it know?
Here, as with almost this entire post, I am speculating, because in all honesty I don't know. But, this is what makes sense to me: what the brain knows is efficiency with what it has available and it knows how to problem solve. It is my belief that what we see on the outside as a "squat" or a "lunge" is simply how the brain has decided to most efficiently complete a given task.

I think it is important to bring up the point that both a "squat" and a "lunge" are limited by the need to keep the center of a given mass over the related base of support, i.e. not fall over.

Image courtesy of fitness.makeupandbeauty.com

So if the desired outcome is to stand up, we may get something that superficially looks like what might be called part of a "squat" simply because that was the most efficient way of achieving the given outcome with what the system had available to it at that point in time while still abiding by the laws of physics.

If you are walking along and you stumble a little bit causing one foot to go forward and your knees to bend, it may look something like part of a "lunge", but again this is simply due to the brain solving the problem of how to not fall over using what the system has available to it at the moment in time while still abiding by the laws of physics.

And, equally as important to reiterate, this gross orchestrated outcome is simply a series of motions at specific joint and no motion at other joints--all orchestrated by the brain in an attempt to solve the problem at hand as efficiently as possible.

There isn't any magic in these movements that should allow them to take precedence in many training programs and fitness routines.  They are simply one motion combined with other motions done out of a need for efficiency.

Maybe I am way off in this post.  Maybe we are all actually hardwired to perform what we call "squats" and "lunges" and not only is any inability to do so a clear demonstration of systemic dysfunction, but these movements should be trained again and again and again until we can do them perfectly.  As if there was actually some means by which to measure perfection.

So those are my thoughts on the matter.  What are yours?  Drop a comment below to let me know.

Your body.  Your training.

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